Yankees passing Red Sox in standings with doubleheader sweep is stunning

The New York Yankees appear to have played enough close games that they’ve finally gotten the hang of closing these nailbiters out.

The Red Sox? Well…apparently, three games against the lowly Orioles this weekend at Fenway weren’t enough to adequately prepare Alex Cora’s crew for the Yankees’ pitching in a doubleheader on Tuesday.

Call it a fallacy. Call it an attempt to quantify the foreign concept of “mojo”. But there’s no chance that the mid-June Yankees, with their dicey vibes, win either of these games.

Now? The Sox feel like the frantic ones, making panic move after panic move while failing to secure the big hit. Alex Cora looks like a far less competent manager on the road. Huh. Wonder what changes when they leave the friendly confines?

In Tuesday’s second game, following Jonathan Loaisiga’s tough-as-nails, 34-pitch save in the first contest, New York held the Sox down deep.

Despite the fact that there was traffic on the bases constantly, the Yankees worked out of significant jams in the second, fifth and sixth, with the final pickle summed up nicely by the wild Wandy Peralta play that ended things.

The Yankees have stunned the Red Sox and zipped past them in the Wild Card standings.

Too much…good news…probably time for Aaron Boone to drop the Luis Severino MRI results in the postgame, right?

At this point…whatever, folks. The water is simply rolling off this team’s back right now. Look at the names that made Tuesday happen. Peralta. Andrew Velazquez. Luis Gil. The forgotten Luke Voit. Tyler Wade.

Heck, the team pulled off a complete fire drill in the top of the ninth, switching every single defensive position except for Kyle Higashioka behind home plate. Chad Green went 1-2-3 against the top of the lineup in response to that madness. That’s what you’d call “gelling” at a very high level.

After so many high-profile Yankees failures both this season and (let’s face it) from 2004 to present in moments that really mattered against the Boston Red Sox, this doubleheader seemed perfectly positioned to break our hearts yet again.

Yankees can pass the Sox and make a statement with a sweep, right? With a series win, the two teams’ psyches might forever flip, huh? But if the Sox pulled off another series win — like they’ve done against the Yankees time and again — the bleeding would be staunched.

Nope. Remember when Giancarlo Stanton deked Nathan Eovaldi with a terrible swing on a fastball, only to be gifted a breaking ball that he launched 441 feet out to left-center?

On Tuesday, the Yankees delivered the gut punches.

On Tuesday, Chad Green stared down the exact men who beat him at Fenway in a killer loss at the end of July and inched his team into a playoff spot.

This is far from the end. But if you thought the season “ended in July,” we hope you were referring to Boston’s unchallenged supremacy atop the East. Because that’s looking iffy, and the Yankees aren’t done.

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